


golden guarded soul

by imaginarykat



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: M/M, first kiss in the Void how very romantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 22:20:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13750377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginarykat/pseuds/imaginarykat
Summary: Corvo kisses a god.





	golden guarded soul

**Author's Note:**

> translations available:  
> [(Russian)](https://ficbook.net/readfic/6672838)  
> thank you <3

“There is something I’d like to give you,” the Outsider tells him.

It’s been a while since he’s actually been to the Void, since he felt its endless cold seeping into his bones and its winds whispering words of a dead language into his ears. He dreamed of the place many times, but those dreams were his own; he walked the infinite nothing by himself, with only the distant songs of whales to keep him company. In his dreams, the Void seemed very lonely.

But this is not his dream; if it is a dream at all, it belongs to someone else. There is a familiar presence here, black eyes staring at him, somehow both disinterested and curious at the same time.

Corvo tilts his head to the side, watching the god carefully. He doesn’t say anything; there rarely seems to be any point in that, anyway, not here in the Void.

“The marks I leave upon your world are few, but they stretch far, sometimes beyond what even I can see,” the Outsider says, his tone somewhere between wistful and wry. “People like to see my hand in everything, in every little misfortune life throws at their feet. They like to call and curse my name, claim every inconvenient twist of fate is my doing. They beg me to leave them alone even though I never once looked in their direction in the first place. Some call me cruel, and perhaps they are right; I am many things.”

He disappears in a swirl of smoke and reappears a few steps further, crouched near the edge of the floating platform they’re on. Corvo follows him, because he always does, driven half by a curiosity some would call morbid, and half by a feeling he doesn’t intend to put a name to.

It’s hardly reverence. Corvo has never been one to kneel and pray before the shrines, he never cowered and never begged for the god’s favour. His is a different kind of loyalty. He has to keep the Outsider’s Mark on the back of his hand covered most of the time now but he hates it, has to tolerate the Overseers and the Abbey but he hates that too. A recent height of his spiteful exasperation had him sneaking into the place in the middle of the night just to stuff a bone charm into a chandelier; nothing malevolent, just enough to make the Overseers uncomfortable.

Corvo doesn’t want to admit it, but he _is_ fascinated; so few in each generation could ever claim to be able to hold the Void’s interest, yet here he was, one of the Outsider’s chosen, moving to sit down on the edge of nothingness right next to a god. The Outsider told him he was fascinating, once; Corvo wonders if he knows just how mutual that fascination is.

The Outsider turns his head to look at him, black eyes glimmering. “I am many things,” he says again, barely above a whisper, “but I have never been neutral, and I lied to you when I told you I don’t play favourites. I see all futures, but I do not know which one will come to pass until everyone makes their choices.”

Corvo doesn’t know what to say to that. He often doesn’t. He offers the Outsider his attention instead; it usually seems to be enough.

“Have you enjoyed my gifts, Corvo?” the Outsider asks after a moment. Corvo frowns at him.

“You know the answer to that.”

“Perhaps I’d like to hear you say it.”

He’s gone once more, turned into smoke and dust, but his voice seems to linger, one question asked and so many of them unspoken.

“They’ve… kept me alive,” Corvo says, climbing to his feet, looking around, trying to predict where to look to face those black eyes again. “Helped me find Emily, make things… as right as I could.”

A ghost of a hand upon his shoulder; he turns, but there’s nothing there.

“That doesn’t quite answer the question I asked you, my dear Corvo,” the Outsider tells him, hidden from sight, notes of disappointed indifference woven into his voice.

Corvo thinks back to where it all started; remembers waking up from his very first walk through the Void and looking at the sharp shape burned into the back of his hand, at the heretic’s tattoo. He remembers being exhausted and afraid; his life collapsed around him and he didn’t know if he could trust the unknown that reached out to him, but he was in no position to choose. He took the gifts the Outsider offered, learned to use them, taught himself to stop fearing what was now a part of him.

He remembers watching the Outsider’s Mark on the back of his hand with forced apathy, then with careful curiosity, then with wonder. Searching for shrines, bowing his head before them slightly, speaking to the black-eyed god and wondering how come the Void hasn’t driven him mad like it did so many others.

“Almost seems like they’ve kept me sane, ironically enough,” he finally says.

A shadow of a breath upon his palm, fingers passing over the mark on his hand and still nothing to see.

There’s amusement in the Outsider’s voice as he asks, “But have you enjoyed them, I wonder?”

Corvo stops himself from shrugging. Might as well just say it. No point in trying to lie to a god. “Yes.”

The Outsider materialises right before him, whispers made matter, black eyes fixed on Corvo’s face. Corvo takes half a step back in surprise. “There is another gift I have for you, if you would accept it.”

Corvo frowns, again. “Why now?”

The god crosses his arms over his chest; such a human gesture. “Why not?”

“And why would you even _ask_?” Corvo shakes his head. “You never asked if I wanted your mark.”

“You could have refused.”

“Well, I didn’t.”

Because he was afraid, back then.

“Would you refuse now?”

Corvo stops, breathes, wonders. “No.”

Because now, he is no longer afraid.

The Outsider is close, he realises, very close, and Corvo doesn’t step away, completely captivated. The god’s eyes are a void of their own, but they’re not empty; there are so many emotions he seems to be keeping just under the surface, behind the mask of aloof nonchalance. His fingers find Corvo’s shoulders, and then his cheeks, curious touches, soft, but decidedly real. Corvo doesn’t dare move, doesn’t dare disturb the moment.

And then, the Outsider kisses him.

Everything goes silent and Corvo gasps, silent; eyes wide open, mind at a loss, body frozen in shock.

It's his hands that betray him first. Slow and hesitant but moving, searching for something to grasp at and finding the shoulders of a god. The Abbey has always warned of Restless Hands, but not like this, Corvo thinks, or perhaps exactly like this, but it doesn’t matter. His mouth is quick to betray him next, his lips parting to returning the kiss, and Corvo’s eyes almost fall shut; almost, because he can't _not_ look at this, at the endless curiosity in the Outsider’s face, at the softness of his expression, at his eyelashes so close they’re almost brushing against Corvo’s skin.

Corvo sighs, a soft sound full of longing, and wonders idly which stricture this would be. Lying Tongue perhaps? But this doesn't feel like lying; oh, not many things have felt this true over the long years. Wandering Gaze? Wanton Flesh? Corvo wants to laugh. His hands slide over the Outsider's shoulders, down his back, pulling him closer, and this is gentle, innocent, but how innocent is kissing a heretic god, exactly?

The Outsider threads careful fingers though his hair and pulls away, looks up at him; Corvo could drown in his endless gaze, and if this is the corruption of the Void, he’ll gladly take it.

 _My dear Corvo_ , the Outsider mouths against his cheek. _Stay a little longer._

Corvo’s mind betrays him too, finally, and he loses himself in the embrace.

**Author's Note:**

> [etches the entirety of this fic into a rune and leaves it upon a shrine]
> 
> hello Dishonored fandom how are you doing


End file.
